When One Gets Too Busy

To wind your way out of the present
When you get too busy
The cares and battles of today
Drive you to a tizzy
Deadlines, research and paper work, oh what pressure!
Type this email, send that paper to the paper shredder!

"What must I be doing now" you ask
As you fatten up your planner
"I really should prioritize in an organized manner!"
Can you jump of the treadwheel, take a rest, oh what a dream!
You want to run away right now, hold your head and scream!

Instead just turn your head
to the sky in prayer

Let go of every other thing, find peace and truth you hear

Do not abandon all your plans, you will definitely need them later

But the time you spend to refocus may make your achievements even greater

A Hammer and Some Nails

With each passing day, we have been given the opportunity to do something great with the hours we have. We pack various activities into these hours, sometimes without any proper organization of any sort.

I have to admit I have been found wanting when it comes to organizing my time. I mean, I do get extremely busy many times (especially when I have to focus on forms that require filling because for every form I fill I usually make a mistake sometimes somewhere in the second to last line and have to do the crazy thing all over again). If one has a job usually some kind of organization takes place. We have to get there at a particular time (for me it is 8a.m.) Then there are particular hours of the day that have assigned activity. Interestingly, for a work day when I do not have a lot of unassigned activities, I tend to want to pack it up with all kinds of things to do and end up so tired at the end of it all.

One day perhaps all I will need to have in my hand is a hammer and some nails. Something needs to be patched up and I will have the correct tools to work with. I would hope that I have a lot of good experience with hammering nails. The right kind of word to be placed in the heart of someone so that they can survive and thrive in the next phase of their life.

I have often thought about my drive and desire to minister. I am not particular about titles or about stuff like that. I just want to be able to help others and help them through the wisdom of the Bible. When people require advice they want you to be qualified. I am not sure how qualified one can be about life in four years of university. It is assumed however.

The same "nail" when documented can also touch lives. I want that word to be written so someone can read it and see how they can approach certain events in life. A lot of research has to accompany that however. I think I have been quite lazy in terms of gathering information for one of my projects that I so want to complete.

Finally, since yesterday, twice it has come up in the literature that I read of being a letter read by men. Say, can my life be that "nail" that will allow others to get help in their own daily lives. That even though I have struggles on my own, I can plan out my days and even when I do not I can still live a fulfilling life anyway. Can I find it in a hammer and some nails?

(I see the need for modification--This blog is allowing me to get my thoughts in print and help me to work out scenes)

A Fresh New Start

It has been soo long since I have written a blog. A month and little over a half. I felt a bit tired and stressed out after the summer and then coming into the new school term I have not settled down yet. There are some issues that need to be resolved and I haven't been dealing with them the correct Biblical way. I will need to. I did comment that I had a great summer and I did.

This school year is quite different. Many things are still unfamiliar. Having to form new relations. Needless to say I was correct about all those lofty plans I had for the summer. I hate saying, "I am going to..." I did read Galatians. The incubator is still needing to generate some reality.

What do I hope to achieve? My last post was about rest. I think during this mid-term break I should get some rest. I have been up all day checking stuff online and haven't slept. I did sleep last night though. I wanted to sleep from before I got to church. The preacher was not boring though so I did not not nod off too badly.

I bought a book--Invitation to Biblical Hebrew and I found a cool site also that gives information about the Hebrew alphabet. I hope to continue to work with it even when I go back to work. Work seems to be taking so much that my personal goals are not being put on the burner at all.

Books to write

Pastoral Ministry studies

Hebrew and Greek Grammar Study

Spanish and French study (I began to study Spanish again wheee! from 2007 (!))

etc.

Rest...

At the end of each day one is required to rest. I was watching a video clip of a young man inspiring young people to succeed. He said that some of the top performers want to succeed so badly that they don't remember that they haven't eaten or slept. You wonder how much would you give up to succeed when you hear those stories.

If you stretch too much, you might not have enough use for anything eventually but then again if you do NOT stretch too much you never become anything. The key is balance. I suppose we will spend the rest of our lives trying to find that place of balance or perhaps the key is to overstretch than to understretch. (I am of course rambling)

I made it to camp. It was really good. I had to let go off several mindsets that I had before. That made all the difference. While there, I realize that there are a few things that I do that could be changed so that I can be a better person. The theme was "Hope for Tomorrow". They did a tremendous play afterwards. It should have been recorded. I loved it so much. I realize more than every that I love to work with young people. I just feel my bowels of compassion move (perhaps that is not such a good analogy but) when I have to work with them. I don't claim to understand them and that is o.k. for me now. I just want to sow a seed in their lives and just allow myself to love them. I will see the areas that God will lead me into where that is concerned.

I am taking this week to rest as i hinted at the before. I did make my list of things to do for the summer but that statement "Man plans and God wipes out" really came through for me. Now, a women's conference, two camps, VBS, etc later, I can say this was the most productive summer I have ever spent. I loved it!

I still have my dreams and still have quite a few things I want to do. I am listening for a call to get into that school. It will not be too much for me. I am giving You thanks Lord for all that You have done! Thank You!

In His Time...He Makes All Things Beautiful

It has been a little while since I blogged. So much has been going on. Eugene Peterson in The Message Bible said "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll live freely and lightly." Matthew 11:28-30.

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. You know for all the challenges that people have to face on a daily basis, grace is necessary to take you through. What we need is to know that we have a Savior (you know that some people get upset at our Savior(?)). Our Savior said in John 16:33 again from The Message Bible, "I've told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. IN THIS GODLESS WORLD YOU WILL CONTINUE TO EXPERIENCE DIFFICULTIES. But take heart! I've conquered the world." The KJV put is this way, "In the world you will have tribulation".

A pregnant mother at the beginning of her time many times undergoes morning sickness. Now when she has to keep losing her food, if someone is looking on they do not take her to the hospital and there is not much concern because this is what is supposed to be. If that woman was not pregnant then if she loses her food there will be cause for concern because what triggers it is not known and has to be identified as not life threatening.

Ease and relieve. The Message Bible again. Lord just bless Your word unto our hearts.

Working Tools

I am going to do a proper review of The Manual. I may even read it again before I do so. Tonight, I am looking at educational tools. I needed to make a list in one place so I can have them to share:
The overall resource site is:
http://www.protopage.com/web2point0forteachers#Web_2.0_For_Teachers/Welcome

• Wink ( http://www.debugmode.com/wink/)-Tutorial and presentation software on how to use software.
• Alice programming for students (www.alice.org)-A 3-D storytelling software
• Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) a programming language to create interactive stories, games, music and art.

I want to allow the students to create flash cards for definitions and I need a tool to record questions for them to be able to do.

What is the difference between a feature and a benefit? Let's take a $500K Ferrari sports car.

What are the features? Made by the best European car designers, hand-made Italian leather seats and expensive coverings, lifetime guarantee on all parts.

What are the benefits? You will have the most famous sports car in the world, you will be recognized as someone with style, flair and real class; and you'll be envied by your peers.
This information was taken from (http://www.klariti.com/business-writing/Difference-Features-Benefits.shtml)

Another site has information on the difference between features, benefits, and advantages.

FEATURE: A fact or a characteristic of a product.

ADVANTAGE: Something that makes your product better than that of your competitor product or a substitute product.

BENEFIT: What the customer is looking for [needs/wants] or something that will help your customer in getting the job done, easier or better or faster.

I just had to put that in there as well although the two topics are quite unrelated presently.

Here ends this night's search. I will continue at some later time. (More than likely a few hours from now)

Writing it into Being

On July 24, 2010, I went to "Auntie's bookstore" and was looking in "my" section of the bookshop--the Christian books section. Usually I do not look at the novels on the left or I do look but shield my eyes. I do not want certain things before my eyes. Somehow, however, I glanced up to the top shelf and this one book kept staring at me just like Karen Kingsbury's Return stared out at me at the parish library. (I need to be aware of the signs.)

The book had a white cover with a serene picture of a man and a woman standing arms crossed and at arms length (well not arms length but they might as well have been) looking at each other against a faded background of the sea (I assume..it is not that clear). The name: The Manual by Sherryle Kiser Jackson. I read the back cover copy and realized, much to my glee, that it was a Christian novel.

It was about a week before that I was wondering if there were any Jamaican authors and I found one Joy Campbell. Now it seems the Holy Spirit was leading me to find others. Christian authors in addition. I completed the book today. It was not the style of a certain female author and there were grammatical and spelling errors in a few places but the whole story just has motivated me to go ahead. It is time for me to write. So I will write.

I found out that the book was published by a publisher Urban Christian (I am getting happy about it). I guess I will give a better review of it later since it is late in the night. I could not relate to some of the mannerisms in the book except by what I have seen on television... behavior from urban America I assume. The plot was quite lovely though. I actually smiled at some points. I am not sure but I did not flow with it like I usually would. And yes, I was playing the critic. I actually expected that Deidre was going to write a manual on child-rearing but I saw that it took another twist. I loved how the sermons were written seamlessly into the book and how Andre took responsibility of his child eventually finding Christ. I wonder if I will reread it to get a better view of it.

I perhaps will...